welcome and enjoy!

Hi and welcome to my blog about comics from other people’s childhood! It is dedicated primarily to British humour comics of the 60s and 70s. The reason they are not from my childhood is simply because I didn’t live in the UK back then (nor do I live there now). I knew next to nothing about them until fairly recently but since then I’ve developed a strong liking for the medium and amassed a large collection, including a number of complete or near complete sets. My intention is to use this blog as a channel for sharing my humble knowledge about different titles, favourite characters and creators as I slowly research my collection.

QUICK TIP: this blog is a sequence of posts covering one particular comic at a time. The sequence follows a certain logic, so for maximum results it is recommended that the blog is read from the oldest post up.

Copyright of all images and quotations used here is with their respective owners. Any such copyrighted material is used exclusively for educational purposes and will be removed at first notice. All other text copyright Irmantas P.

Saturday, June 29, 2013

The
previous post on Grimly Feendish contained a number of examples of early work by
Tom Paterson. In addition to the weekly strip about Grimly, Tom contributed illustrations
to a few reader participation features, namely Cackles from the Cave, Mirth
Shakers and Jokes section of Shake’s
‘editorial’ page. Since I am on the subject of Tom Paterson, it is a good
excuse to say a few words about the features and show a few more examples of
Tom’s early IPC work.

Cackles
from the Cave started in the first issue of the paper as
a half-pager in which Shiver promoted the reader participation features of his
section and where some of readers’ jokes and other contributions were printed
with illustrations by the paper’s artists. I am unsure about the name of the artist
who was there from the first week (possibly Alf Saporito), and another one who
joined in towards the end, but Tom Paterson started doing these illustrations
from issue 24 (August
18, 1973), a few weeks before the appearance of his first Grimly
Feendish set, and continued drawing them more or less regularly until
the end of the paper’s run. This is the first installment of Cackles from the Cave with Tom's drawings:

Time for
change came in the beginning of the 1974; in issue 48 (February 2, 1974) the
feature was renamed Cackles Corner, but only for one week; starting from issue 49 and
right up to the end of the run Cackles shared a page with Creations
Runners Up, at first on a fifty-fifty basis, later as the dominant
feature (in terms of space). Here are some examples:

The 'editorial’ page of SHAKE had as many as three
columns crammed into it and jokes sent in by Shake
fans was one of the elements. Some of them were text jokes, others were gag
cartoons. Tom Paterson started drawing them in issue 25 (August 25, 1973) and
continued pretty much regularly until the end:

Last but
not least, Tom Paterson’s cartoons can be found in Mirth Shakers feature that
appeared in full colour on the back cover of Shake section during 4 weeks in issues 28 to 31 (September 15 – October 6,
1973) and then in black and
white from issue 63 (May 18, 1974) until the very end of the run. Here are some examples:

Wednesday, June 26, 2013

Grimly
Feendish was the fourth strip that started in
SHIVER AND SHAKE No. 22 and the third of the paper’s features (after Frankie
Stein and Ghouldilocks) that had originated years ago in another comic.
Grimly had enjoyed a long and spectacular career in crime, first as a character
of the long-running strip Eagle Eye Junior Spy in WHAM! and
later as the star of a strip named after him in SMASH! , so before looking at
the run of shiver and shake it is appropriate to mention a few things about his background.

First ever panel in WHAM! No. 1

Grimly
Feendish was Leo Baxendale’s creation for WHAM!
comic. In his book a very funny business
Mr. Baxendale admits that the character came out looking ‘vaguely like the
uncle in the Chas Addams family’, but in fact the likeness was way more than
vague. In Eagle Eye Junior Spy Grimly Feendish was an ambitious criminal mastermind
whose aim was to conquer the World. The infamous arch-villain fought a relentless
war with the young MI 5 ½ agent Eagle Eye who was forever foiling his evil
plots. Eagle Eye Junior Spy’s Grimly Feendish first appeared in the
first issue of WHAM! and was last seen in the penultimate edition of the paper
(No. 186 dated 13th Jan., 1968).

From WHAM! No. 1

Interestingly,
less than two years before that he got his own weekly strip in another Power Comic
SMASH! Although the Grimly of SMASH! still had his crowd of squelchy things and
weirdies familiar to readers of WHAM!, his criminal ambitions had shrunk
considerably and become limited to stealing and robbing. Crimes of this
category fell outside the competence of intelligence services but being ‘the
rottenest crook in the world’, Grimly made new enemies in the shape of the
police. Grimly Feendish ran in SMASH! issues No. 1 – 162 (Feb. 5th, 1966
– 8th March, 1969 (last pre-revamp issue)) and then disappeared
from the radar for nearly four years before re-surfacing in SHIVER AND SHAKE
No. 22.

The Grimly
of SHIVER AND SHAKE was the thieving and robbing version from SMASH!, rather than
the villainous mastermind with World-domination ambitions from WHAM! The shiver and shake run of Grimly
Feendish started with eleven reprints from SMASH! I pinned
down the particular issues of SMASH! in which the episodes originally appeared;
here is the list for those who care:

Check out an example
of a SMASH! original and a SHIVER AND SHAKE reprint side-by-side:

In Shiver and ShakeGrimly Feendish picked up
where he had left off in SMASH! and continued with daring crime schemes,
assisted by Squelch and company. Although his life’s ambition was to rob the
Bank of England, it was not uncommon to see Grimly raid a candy store or swinde
old folks out of their pensions. In issue 24 Grimly Feendish appeared in The
Shiver Givers strip and hit a new low by lifting a rubber from Frankie
Stein and a type-writer from Shiver:

From issue
34 until the end of the run illustrator’s duties were given to the young Tom Paterson
who was just starting his career in comics. I may be mistaken, but Grimly
Feendish was probably his first regular strip and Tom’s style is hardly
recognisable at that stage. Check out the examples below and see how his style
evolved into something more familiar as weeks went by. He even signed a couple of episodes
towards the end of the run (in Shiver
and Shake issues 73 and 77):

First episode by Tom Paterson in SHIVER & SHAKE No. 34

From SHIVER & SHAKE No. 41

From SHIVER & SHAKE No. 42

From SHIVER & SHAKE No. 51

From SHIVER & SHAKE No. 54

First signed episode by Tom Paterson in SHIVER & SHAKE No. 73

Last episode by Tom Paterson in SHIVER & SHAKE No. 77

Trivia
buffs will be delighted to know that Tom Paterson’s trademark striped upright sock was
first seen on the side of the turret of Grimly’s tank in Grimly Feendish episode
in SHIVER AND SHAKE No. 49:

Grimly
Feendish started in SHIVER AND SHAKE issue No. 22 and continued until issue No. 77 missing three weeks inbetween
(issue Nos. 63, 72, 76). The episodes in issues 22 to 33 were reprints from
SMASH!, as was the episode in issue 39 (illustrated
by Terry Bave I believe). The episodes in issues 34 to 77 were by Tom Paterson who
drew in his early rough style. The strip was part of SHIVER section of the
paper. Grimly Feendish got his own mini pin-up in Frankie Stein mini
pull-out comic in SHIVER AND SHAKE issue 54:

Grimly Feendish didn’t survive
merger with WHOOPEE!, so SHIVER AND SHAKE saw the sad end of his long and
dramatic criminal career from the mastermind of the underworld to a petty thief. The strip was
included as an entrant in the Pick-A-Strip feature in Whoopee! and Shiver & Shake where
it competed against 7 other strips but readers gave their support to SweenyToddler.
The good thing is that he continued in SHIVER AND SHAKE annuals and holiday specials for quite a while and if you are a Grimly buff, you may very well might find it worth while checking the Grimly Feendish label in the column on the right for full details. Afterwards Grimly was seen just one more time in ALBION series published by Wildstorm in 2005.

Grimly
Feendish must have been fondly remembered by many, including members of the London rock band The Damned who named one of
their singles after him in 1985. The single reached No. 21 in UK charts: